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CHAPTER SIXTEEN 

Of Theodore Roosevelt And his Time Volume 2

 FROM KHARTOUM TO LONDON—CONTINUED: 

there was a sequel to my visit to Vienna which was rather amusing.   By appointment I called on the Prime Minister. He was a statesman and diplomat of the old school, very polished and cultivated, with real power, and entirely cynical.   Down at bottom he had no more sympathy with me than Merry del Val, but unlike Merry del Val he recognized the fact that the world had moved; and went out of his way, as did the Emperor, to thank me for what I had done at Rome, saying that it made their task a little easier; and I think he was instrumental in having the Papal Nuncio call on me when our Ambassador, who is himself a Catholic, gave me a reception at the Embassy—a fact which drove the ultras of the Vatican nearly crazy.   He speedily brought the subject round to the question of universal peace and disarmament, and cautiously tried to draw me out as to what my attitude would be on these subjects when I saw the Kaiser in Berlin.   Carnegie, personally and through Root, my onetime Secretary of State, had been asking me to try to get the Emperor committed to universal arbitration and disarmament, and had been unwary enough to let something leak into the papers about what he had proposed. Root was under obligations to Carnegie for the way that Carnegie had helped him in connection with the Pan-American movement, and he had also helped the Smithsonian in fitting out the scientific people who went with me on my African trip; and Carnegie's purposes as regards international peace are good; and so I told him that I would see whether I could speak to the Emperor or not, but that I did not believe any good would come of it. 

From America, I suppose through some inadvertence  on Mr. Carnegie's part, it got into the newspapers that I was to speak to the Emperor about peace; whereupon all the well-meaning and unspeakably foolish busybodies who, partly from sincere interest and partly from fussiness and vanity, like to identify themselves with large reforms, and whose identification therewith always does damage to the said reforms, began to write to me and to the papers. Evidently this had much alarmed the German foreign office people, and probably the German Kaiser himself. Those responsible for Germany's policies at the present day are most ardent disciples of, and believers in, Frederick the Great and Bismarck, and not unnaturally have an intense contempt for the mock altruism of so many worthy people who will not face facts—a contempt which Bismarck showed for Motley when Motley very foolishly thrust upon him advice about how to deal with conquered France. Having been trained to believe only in loyalty to the national welfare, and in the kind of international morality characteristic of one pirate among his fellow pirates, they are unable to understand or appreciate the standards of international morality which men like Washington and Lincoln genuinely believed in, which have been practised on a very large scale for two or three generations by your people in India, and latterly in Egypt and which are now being applied by our own people on a smaller scale in the Philippines and the West Indies.

Evidently the German foreign office availed themselves of the very close relations between Austria and Germany, and got the Austrian Prime Minister to sound me as to my intentions. He took advantage of a question I put to him anent a remark to me by the Duke of Abruzzi, who had told me that in Europe they firmly believed that two wars were certain, one between Japan and ourselves, one between you and Germany. After repeating this remark, I said that I did not believe war would ever come between Japan and ourselves, certainly not if we kept up a sufficiently efficient navy, and fortified Hawaii and the Canal; and I asked the Prime Minister whether such a calamity as a war between England and Germany would really be provoked by Germany. He at once answered that he had first-hand information which made him sure that Germany had no intention whatever of provoking a war, but that she did not intend to be at the mercy of any power; and that as her trade was growing, and her overseas interests growing, she believed it necessary to build up a big fleet. I mentioned that while President I had sounded, unofficially and informally, Germany and England as well as other powers to see if we could not limit the size of armaments, at least by limiting the size of ships; but had found that while all the other powers were willing, Germany and England would not consent; Germany taking the ground that the status quo put her at an improper disadvantage, and England saying— as I believe quite properly—that naval superiority was vital to her existence and that if Germany intended to alter the status quo she could not agree under any consideration to refrain from a policy of shipbuilding which would prevent such alteration from coming into effect. I added that while I had no proposition to make myself I did wish that the German authorities would seriously consider whether it was worth while for them to keep on with a building program which was the real cause why other nations were forced into the very great expense attendant upon modern naval preparation.
The minister asked me if I intended to speak about this in Berlin. I answered that I did not know, that I could not tell whether or not the chance would arise. I of course expected him to inform the Berlin foreign office of what I had said, and indeed desired him to do so; but I had not expected what followed. Two days later the Berlin papers came out with semi-official statements to the effect that the Berlin foreign office had been informed that I wished to talk to them on the subject of universal peace and disarmament, but that they did not believe for a moment that I would be so lacking in understanding of the requirements of the situation as to take advantage of my friendly personal visit to broach a subject which would be very distasteful and which the government authorities would have to refuse to discuss.
I was really grateful, not only to the Austrian for what he had done, but to the Berlin Government for taking such public action. Not only Mr. Carnegie, but a multitude of well-meaning and ignorant people had wrought themselves into the belief that if I chose I could do something with the Emperor for peace; and I was glad to be able to point out to them this announcement from the German foreign office in advance of my visit, which saved me the necessity of trying to explain why I could accomplish nothing. On the other hand it did give me exactly the chance that I wished with both the Emperor and the Chancellor in Berlin. To each of them I pointed out these statements in the German papers, and stated that I had had no intention of broaching the subject unless it had become evident that they were willing to have me speak; but after such a publication, obviously inspired by my conversation with the Austrian Prime Minister, it was due to myself that I should tell them at first-hand just what that conversation had been; and I accordingly repeated it to them, -ending by saying that I knew perfectly well not only from what had appeared in the press but from other information I had received, that they were reluctant to discuss the matter, that I hoped they understood that I was a practical man and in no sense a peace-at-any-price man, and that all I had felt was that the subject was of such importance as to warrant consideration as to whether or not it was feasible to do something practical toward limiting expense and putting difficulties in the way of war.
The Emperor was very courteous, and said that he really had no control over the matter, that it was something which affected the German people, and that the German people, or at least that section of the German people upon whom he relied and in whom he believed, would never consent to Germany's failing to keep herself able to enforce her rights either on land or at sea. The Chancellor was obviously a good deal taken aback at my remarks, and at first started to deny that they had inspired the articles in the press, whereupon I laughed and told him not to bother about denying it because I had not minded in the least. He then laughed too, and said that he had become sorry that the articles were ever published, and had not personally approved of their being published. The Austrian Ambassador in Berlin was very anxious to see me and was wholly unable to resist asking whether I had spoken to the Emperor and the Foreign Office about peace and disarmament; so I replied by asking him whether the publication in question had been made by him prior to communicating the matters to the German Foreign Office, or by the German Foreign Office after he had communicated my conversation with his chief; and I added that I did not mind in the least, that while I thought the publication in the papers unnecessary, it had given me the chance to say what I had to say, a chance which otherwise I probably would not have had. He nearly choked in trying to invent some appropriate remark in response; but failed.
From Vienna I went to Paris, where I joined Mrs. Roosevelt at the Bacons'. Bacon, old college friend of mine, was then, and is now, Ambassador to Paris. He and his wife are dear people, and staying with them was an oasis in a desert of hurry and confusion. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Paris, but by the end I began to feel jaded. Jusserand had come across the ocean to meet me. We are very fond of him. Frenchmen, thank heavens! do understand a liking for the things in life that are most interesting, and though official deputations accompanied me round to the three or four museums or picture galleries which I insisted on visiting, the officials differed markedly from the corresponding type in most other countries and were pleasant companions. The Royalist press, being Catholic, was inclined to receive me coldly because of the Vatican incident, but my Sorbonne speech delighted them; and, curiously enough, it also delighted the Republicans who were getting very uneasy over the Socialist propaganda, or at least over the mob work and general sinister destruction in which Socialist propaganda was beginning to take practical form. Accordingly, all the Republican leaders hailed what I said because it came from a radical Republican, whose utterances they could applaud and hold up as an excuse for strong action on their part, without its being possible for their foes to taunt them with being royalists and reactionaries in disguise.
Besides various formal functions such as dinner and receptions by the municipal government and by the Institute (of which I had been made a member and where, by the way, I genuinely enjoyed myself), I was also given two or three private breakfasts and dinners at which I met Briand, and various other members of the Government and the Opposition, in intimate and informal fashion. These I especially liked. Neither the President nor the ex-President was interesting; they were good honest respectable figureheads ; but the members of the various ministries were thoroughly competent men, of much ability. It shows my own complacent Anglo-Saxon ignorance that I had hitherto rather looked down upon French public men, and have thought of them as people of marked levity. When I met them I found that they had just as solid characters as English and American public men, although with the attractiveness which to my mind makes the able and cultivated Frenchman really unique. I speedily realized that it was not they who were guilty of levity, it was the French nation, or rather the combination of the French national character with the English parliamentary system; a system admirable for England, taking into account the English national character, the customs and ways of looking at things inherited generation after generation by both the English people and their public men, and especially the fact that there are in England two parties; but a system which has not worked well in a government by groups, where the people do not mind changing their leaders continually, and are so afraid of themselves that, unlike the English and Americans, they do not dare trust any one man with a temporary exercise of large power for fear they will be weak enough to let him assume it permanently.
Of course in talking with these French Republicans, who are absorbed in the questions that affect all of us under popular government, I had a sense of kinship that it was impossible to feel with men, however high-minded and well-meaning, whose whole attitude of mind towards these problems was different from mine. With the French Republicans I could on the whole, and in spite of certain points on which we radically differed, feel a sympathy somewhat akin to that which I felt in talking with English Liberals. Of course there are plenty of French Republicans, just as there are plenty of English radicals and American progressives, with whom I am as completely out of sympathy as with any ecclesiastic or royalist reactionary. But fundamentally it is the radical liberal in all three countries with whom I sympathize. He is at least working toward the end for which I think we should all of us strive; and when he adds sanity and moderation to courage and enthusiasm for high ideals he develops into the kind of statesman whom alone I can whole-heartedly support. In France I also met a number of men of letters whom I had really wished to see, men like Victor Berard and De la Gorce and Boutroux. What a charming man a charming Frenchman is!
There was one incident which interested me. The French were bound that I should see some of their troops. I had at first refused to accept a review, simply because I did not have the time; but Jusserand finally told me that they understood that the German Emperor would have a big review in my honor, and that the French people would take it amiss if I so acted as to give the impression that while I believed France had charm and refinement, so that it was worth while seeing her museums and picture galleries, her salons, her doctors of the Sorbonne and the Institute, yet I did not take her military power seriously, nor deem her soldiers worth seeing; for, said Jusserand, the French pride themselves upon being a military nation, and admit no military inferiority to any people, no matter how much they may also pride themselves upon proficiency in all that tells for the grace and refinement of life. Of course I hastily withdrew my declination, saying with entire sincerity that I was a very great admirer of the French soldiers ; and so off I went and saw a sham battle.
I was in the usual dreadful dress of the "visiting statesman," with frock coat and top hat; but when the colonel of the cavalry regiment asked me if I would not ride I said I would if they gave me a pair of leggings, having first hastily consulted Jusserand to find if there would be objection. For reasons which I never quite clearly understood, they were all, officers and men, very much pleased at my riding, and a couple of days later I received a letter written by the senior non-commissioned officer on behalf of the enlisted men of the squadron to which the horse belonged, thanking me and saying they would always take special care of the horse and commemorate in their company records the fact that I had ridden it. I wrote them back telling them that when I got back home I would send them a photograph of myself in my uniform as colonel of the cavalry regiment with which I had served in Cuba; and this I accordingly did, and they hung it in their caserne. I was a good deal struck by the fact that this was done by the enlisted men, as I found out, without consultation with their officers. It was the kind of thing that our own enlisted men would have done; the kind of thing that the men of the battleship Louisiana did when Mrs. Roosevelt and I went down to Panama, when after our return the Jackies, purely on their own initiative, subscribed a fund with which to have Tiffany make a huge loving cup, which they then sent to Mrs. Roosevelt by a deputation of four of their number. All bursting with pride and so clean that they looked as if they had been holy-stoned.
From Paris I went to Brussels, where we were only able to stay twenty-four hours. I made an address at the Brussels Exposition, the king presiding over the meeting. The American Minister had made a point of my accepting the invitation to make this address because he was heartily ashamed, as was I, of the fact that Congress had failed to make any appropriation for an American exhibit—one of the many exasperating features of Congressional action being a tendency continually to pass resolutions asking nations to send exhibits to our own Expositions, and a bland disregard of requests sent by foreign countries for us in return to make exhibits at their expositions. The Belgian officials and leading men whom I met impressed me very favorably, and their women seemed to me to have the domestic qualities developed much more like our women in England and America than was the case in France, and yet to have the charm and attractiveness of the Frenchwomen. The king was a huge fair young man, evidently a thoroughly good fellow, with excellent manners, and not a touch of pretension. I slipped off for an hour or two to see a couple of things which I wished to see, and at one place he suddenly came across me and instantly took me in his carriage, driving me through the streets as if he had been one of his own subjects, and being greeted by the people in cordial democratic fashion. He afterwards drove me out to the palace, where I dressed for dinner, as he wished to show me some things beforehand. The queen proved really delightful, really cultivated and intellectual, so much so that we made especial inquiries about her; it proved that she was the daughter of a German prince, who was a great oculist, a man who had done first-class work as such; and evidently she had inherited her father's ability. Every evening, as she informed us, she read aloud to the king books in which they were both interested; and altogether they led a thoroughly wholesome life.
Next day we went to Holland, and on our way to The Hague stopped for lunch at Het Loo with the Queen Wilhelmina. The Hollanders had shown so strong a feeling of pride in having a prominent American President who was of Dutch blood visit them that I had naturally appreciated it.
I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Holland, both at The Hague and Amsterdam. The people were charming, and the crowd behaved exactly as if I was still President and home in America; and we got a few hours to ourselves in which to see one or two of the picture galleries, one or two villages, and the tombs of William the Silent and de Ruyter. I was surprised to find how widely English was understood and even spoken, I had to make a speech in a church, which was crowded, and evidently a very large proportion of the audience followed me carefully and understood practically all that I said, not only applauding but laughing at the points I made. There was one thing I found really consoling about Holland. After the beginning of the eighteenth century it had gone steadily downhill, and was very low indeed at the close of the Napoleonic wars. Since then it has steadily risen, and though the nation itself is small I was struck by the power and alertness and live spirit of the people as individuals and collectively. They had completely recovered themselves. When I feel melancholy about some of the tendencies in England and the United States, I like to think that they probably only represent temporary maladies, and that ultimately our people will recover themselves and achieve more than they have ever achieved; and Holland shows that national recovery can really take place.
From Holland we went to Denmark, where we stayed at the palace. This much upset all the diplomats, and especially the Russian representative, who complained to our representative—a close friend of ours and a delightful fellow, Maurice Egan—"Why! they have never before had a private citizen in the palace. I understand Mr. Roosevelt is now nothing in his own country. He is not even an Excellency; and yet he and his family are staying in the rooms the Czar occupied last Summer." The king was somewhere in South Europe, and I did not meet him until I went to London, but his son the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess received us, and also a couple of delightful brothers or uncles, really fine old gentlemen. Through some mistake our trunks did not come on the same train with us. By wire we found they would reach us at about seven thirty. The Crown Prince then came to Mrs. Roosevelt and said that they had asked some people to dinner (it was a formal court dinner) at seven, and there was to be a reception immediately afterwards; that if we waited for the trunks and then got dressed, instead of getting dressed for the reception as soon as the dinner was over, everything would be delayed; and so he wished to know whether she would mind our all coming in our traveling clothes—fortunately we had clean linen in our handbags. The Hof-Mareschal, a Baron somebody, described the incident afterwards to Egan, who wrote to us: "The baron was immensely impressed with Mrs. Roosevelt's indifference on the subject of clothes. He said: 'His Highness asked her if she would mind coming in her traveling dress, and she sai<J certainly not, and came at once, and evidently never thought of the matter at all.' Then, holding up both hands, 'C'etait vraiment royale!'
I was interested in the Old Age homes, and in the cooperative farming, although I 'could only get a glimpse of both; but I was rather puzzled to find that the very great growth of what I should call the wise and democratic use of the powers of the State toward helping raise the individual standard of social and economic well-being had not made the people more contented. It seems to me that the way Denmark has handled the problem of agricultural well-being, and the problem of dealing with the wageworkers who do manual labor, and of securing them against want in their old age, represents a higher and more intelligent social and governmental action than we have begun to have in America; yet I encountered much bitterness towards the national government among the large and growing Socialistic party. This party had control of the municipality of Copenhagen, and the mayor, or official corresponding to the mayor, who sat by me at the municipal dinner was a Socialist. He was a Jew banker, and I was much interested in finding such a man occupying such a position; he stated that as long as individualism persisted he would be foolish not himself to be a banker or other business man, but that he hoped for the advent of Socialism in such form as to destroy the very kind of individualistic business in which he was engaged.

At Christiania we were taken at once to the palace, where we stayed; and I could hardly speak too strongly of King Haakon, Queen Maud, and little Olaf. They were dears; we were genuinely sorry, when we left them, to think that we would never see them again; if ever Norway decides to turn Republic we should love to have them come to live near Sagamore Hill.
Of course Norway is as funny a kingdom as was ever imagined outside of opera bouffe—although it isn't opera bouffe at all, for the Norwegians are a fine, serious, powerful lot of men and women. But they have the most genuinely democratic society to be found in Europe, not excepting Switzerland; there are only two or three states in the American Union which are as real democracies. They have no nobles, hardly even gentry; they are peasants and small townspeople—farmers, sailors, fisher folk, mechanics, small traders. On this community a royal family is suddenly plumped down. It is much as if Vermont should off hand try the experiment of having a king. Yet it certainly seemed as if the experiment were entirely successful.
I was interested to find that the Norwegians in America had on the whole advised a constitutional kingdom rather than a republic, on the ground that the king would not in any way interfere with the people having complete self-government and yet would give an element of stability to the government, preventing changes from being too violent and making a rallying point; one philosophic leader pointing out that this was not necessary in America, where people had grown to accept the republic as a historic ideal, in itself a symbol and pledge of continuity, but that in Norway the republic would not stand for any such ideal of historic continuity, and moreover would be looked down on by its monarchic neighbors—the last being a touch of apprehension on the score of possible international, social inequality which was both amusing and interesting.

   For such a kingdom, constituted of such materials and with such theories, the entire royal family, king, queen, and prince, were just exactly what was needed. They were as simple and unpretentious as they were good and charming. Olaf was a dear little boy, and the people at large were immensely pleased with him. The King was a trump, privately and publicly; he took a keen and intelligent interest in every question affecting his people, treated them and was treated by them with a curiously simple democracy of attitude which was free from make-believe on either side, and therefore free from the offensive and unpleasant characteristics that were evident in, for instance, the relations of Louis Philippe and the Parisian populace, and while he unhesitatingly and openly discussed questions with his ministers, never in the slightest way sought to interfere with or hamper their free action.
In such a monarchy formal state and ceremonial at the court would have been absurd. Staying at the palace was Ijike staying at any gentleman's house with exceptionally charming and friendly hosts. On the first afternoon, shortly after arriving, I was in the sitting room, when in came the King and Queen with Olaf. Mrs. Roosevelt was in her room, dressing. I gave Olaf various bits of bloodcurdling information about lions and elephants; and after a while his mother and father rose, and said: "Come, Olaf, we must go." Olaf's face fell. "But am I not to see the wife?" he said. We assured him he should see the wife at tea. He was not a bit spoiled; his delight was a romp with his father, and he speedily pressed Kermit and Ethel, whom he adored, into the games. In the end I too succumbed and romped with him as I used to romp with my own children when they were small. Outside of his own father and mother we were apparently the only persons who had ever really played with him in a fashion which he considered adequate; and he loudly bewailed our departure.

When we reached London, where he had been brought by his father and mother to attend his grandfather's funeral, Princess Beatrice brightened up for a moment as she told me that Olaf had announced to her: "I would like to marry Ethel; but I know I never shall!" Later, after the funeral, when I called to pay my respects to Queen Alexandra at Buckingham Palace, after being received by her I was taken to see her sister the Dowager-Empress of Russia. She was a very intelligent woman, and kept me nearly an hour discussing all kinds of subjects. Towards the end I began to hear little squeals in the hall, and when I left the Empress, there was Olaf patiently waiting outside the door. He had heard I was in the Palace, and had refused to go down to his dinner until he could see me—with the obvious belief that I would have a game of romps with him. I tossed him in the air, and rolled him on the floor while he shouted with delight; then happening to glance up, I saw that the noise had attracted the Empress, who had opened the door to look on; I paused for a moment, whereupon Olaf exclaimed with a woe-begone face "but aren't you going on with the play?"
At Christiania I saw Nansen the arctic explorer; he reminded me that a dozen years before, when he had dined with me while in America, he had told me that Peary was the best man among the living arctic explorers, and that he had a first-class chance to reach the pole. I had to speak to the Nobel Committee, at the University, at a huge "Banquet" of the canonical—and unspeakably awful type—and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the vigorous, self-reliant people; they lined the streets in dense masses, and had a peculiar barking cheer, unlike any I ever heard elsewhere. But we enjoyed most the family life—it was real family life—of our host and hostess; it was not only very pleasant, but restful, in the palace; we felt as if we were visiting friends, who were interesting and interested, and who wished us to be comfortable in any way we chose. They both frankly commiserated us because we were to stay in the palace at Berlin, for they looked back with lively horror to the way the Kaiser had drilled them when they were at the palace. Said Queen Maud: "I was so frightened that finally I grew afraid to speak to any of them; and when I tried to speak to the servants, I found that they were just as much afraid of me!" They were much interested when I told them my experience about the invitation the Emperor had sent me. This was at Cairo; and the invitation to stay at the palace was to me only. I saw Count Hatzfeld, the German diplomatic agent, an old friend, and told him that I was sure that this was a mistake, and that the Emperor did not know that Mrs. Roosevelt was with me; because of course I could not accept if Mrs. Roosevelt was not included. A couple of days later he came to see me, told me that he had cabled to Berlin, that, as I had supposed, it was simply a mistake, and that we would at once receive an invitation for both of us; which came immediately afterwards.
In Norway I got an attack of bronchitis, which nearly destroyed my voice, and I had to do a good deal of doctoring for the rest of the trip; but I managed to meet every engagement, though in Sweden and Germany I had some hard times.